bend to squares
by Red Riding Freak
Summary: there is a reason to why sai doesn't decorate the bare walls of their house or to why he is still there.  sasuke/sai


**title:** bend to squares  
**rating:** r for homoeroticism and heavy angst and a pseudo-blind sasuke uchiha  
**pairing:** sasuke/sai  
**words:** 2504  
**summary:** there is a reason to why sai doesn't decorate the bare walls of their house or to why he is still there.

**notes:** quick experimental work that was actually supposed to be a drabble, but it got bigger. i know blindness isn't exactly like that, though; i just decided to take some liberties. and i ate the capitals, too, because i'm always hungry like that. also, if you know where the title comes from, i love you and i want your babies.

* * *

**bend to squares.**

* * *

sai doesn't really decorate the plain walls of their house with pictures or family portraits, which is unsurprising, since the faces in the paintings would be blurry lines neither of them could distinguish (sasuke could always fill in the blanks, but now even in his mind everything is blurry). instead, the walls of his—their—house are bare, clean, light grey, minimalist.

but that is not why sai doesn't decorate the house.

he doesn't hang the countless paintings he's done. instead, they are left rotting and collecting dust in the tiny, dark room just by the front door. sai paints them with care, as if they are an intrinsic part of his own being, because he enjoys that what he does. so it isn't because he doesn't like them that he doesn't hang them on the walls.

(nor it isn't because they give away too much of the artist, sasuke thinks, since sai doesn't really let emotions get in the way of most things in his life. or he keeps them to himself. sasuke doesn't know.)

sasuke thinks, hypothesizes that is because sai works to not maim the uchiha's pride, because he knows how much it hurts sasuke. to see no individual traces in anything but blurred shapes, that is.

because sai knows this, despite the uchiha's proud stance.

•

when sasuke asked, sai said something about a promise. something about understanding exactly what connected the blond to sasuke and what it is like to care about someone. he said as if this was the most possibly natural way to follow. sasuke said countless times, "i don't need help," but at the end of everything, he needed it.

and sai couldn't break a promise vowed to a dead friend.

•

they live in sasuke's childhood house. or in what should be the house sasuke grown up in, had it not been for pein and the akatsuki invading for the kyuubi's power. which, all in all, is just sasuke's fault, had madara not wanted the powers beneath konoha's young hero or had sasuke stopped pein.

sasuke knows it from childhood, so he knows the shapes and rooms of the house, which is good. sakura told him once that they had rebuilt the house at naruto's persistent request; and they built it just a perfect replica of what had once stood in that very same place. just a replacement, which is not quite the same as the original. and that, sasuke can't really know whether is good or bad. the other houses that once were there didn't get the chance to be rebuilt, so the place is secluded amidst the young trees and vast spaces. that way, not many really bother to talk with him.

(and that is good.)

there isn't actually much to the house: just the same three bedrooms, kitchen, bathroom and a common room. one of the bedrooms is unused, so it is left empty and clean. sasuke sleeps in the bedroom that has been his for all his time; except that now it is impersonal, as if it is but isn't his bedroom. sai sleeps in the room next to him, which had once belonged to his brother.

(sometimes, sasuke sleeps in itachi's bedroom as well, naked and cradled with sai in the small futon, tasting the salt off his ghostly pale skin.

sometimes is something of an understatement, though.)

the house is all plain, pure whites and grays of all kind, but there is never faintest trace of color. (there is the one, faint blur of red that sasuke knows belongs to the spiraled tattoo on sai's left arm; a testimony of what sai gave up.) sometimes, sometimes, sasuke still has the illusion of sight, and he thinks that perhaps he sees no more in blurs. because everything is so plain and simple. needless to say, the weight of this realization stings him more than it should.

he doesn't say anything about it, but neither does sai do.

and, of course, there is the secluded garden and it's singing fountain, bamboo reeds and soft grass. of all places, that is the one he likes the most.

•

sasuke has been selfish, and now he pays the price.

when he had the chance, he activated the darkest powers he had access to because they were powerful, too. he decided not to heed the several warnings he was given, and he suffered. out of pride, he refused itachi's eyes, no matter how much madara proposed it to him.

little sasuke knew that his thirst for power was mirrored in his blindness.

the last of the uchiha, truly the last now, after having killed his brother and having killed madara, isn't worthy of his name, because he can't actually prove what's an uchiha's true power.

and that is that.

sasuke lives in a colorless world, now. it isn't inhabited by shadows, though, because all sasuke sees are light grays and pure whites in careless, amorphous blurs; just a little bit of black maims his world. (shadows aren't really needed, either; the young man already has enough of these to unsettle him.) sakura said that wasn't quite possible, a thing such as a white blindness, when she examined him. but it is, and sasuke lives with it.

(just another error. just one more to the count. one, two, three, four—how much is it now?)

he has his suspicions the world isn't quite as a monochrome as he thinks it is. confirming this is the violent, violent red on sai's arm and the warm blood that spills from his eyes. still, sasuke barely sees through a permanent plume of smoke that smears everything.

and sasuke's almost blind, just like that, just like he's always been.

•

their coexistence is quite better than sasuke thought it could be at first. sai is even worse than the uchiha is with dealing with people, but that was just something that helped him: that also meant that this sai would be the same as always, honest and direct. and sasuke wants no sugar-coated words to console him only. sai doesn't expect anything in return for his actions, which sasuke isn't sure he can do.

(but he does, even if he doesn't know of this.)

they live in silence most of the time, because there are few words and the words they want to say are just the words that refuse to slip from their tongues.

sasuke sits still on the porch outside slanted against the wood pillar, watching the time pass by him, weighting the hours that pass by him, and the only noises are the rhythmic songs of the water and the soft sounds of ink soaked brush across soft sheets of white paper. and these are the sounds sasuke is used to. sai sits by his side, painting blurs sasuke can't quite make out. he does this every day, as if it will serve a greater, intangible purpose.

every day is a replica of the one before. (and yet every day is quite unique, too.)

they spar in the morning after they have breakfast (a cup of tea and toast). it is the least they can do to live to their deserted lives as shinobi—a life one of them willingly let go of because the other was forced to. so they spar without any form of weaponry and as simply as they can, won't any of them get badly hurt in this house that barely belongs to konoha.

after that, there is a shower (and sai has to help sasuke with getting his clothing right on his body, despite the uchiha's mute protests and misdirected glares).

and later, there will be lunch, sai will bring sasuke a plate on a provisory table and feeds him the softly boiled, healthy food they always eat nowadays with a patience sasuke can't quite grasp. then, he will hand him a cup of tea while he eats his own part of the meal.

later, later, sai will read books to him, words that don't make much sense to him now sasuke is in this secret, private world. the uchiha still welcomes this; there is something in sai's voice as he reads to him that soothes sasuke to his very core, perhaps because it is the only voice he has grown used to (because not that many people care enough to come here to see him: sakura tried, in the beginning, but it hurt her too much to see sasuke like that and with time her visits disappeared). so these afternoons are slow, tranquil things, sweet and mellow like honey, and if it were entirely in sasuke's hands, he'd ask sai to read his throat raw.

(but he can't possibly ask that: that way it wouldn't be the same, he wouldn't be able to recognize sai and he can't possibly have sai sacrificing that one more thing for sasuke.)

in the beginning of their living together, they went into the buzzing streets of konoha to get some indispensable groceries, and that was an adventure never to repeat. sasuke didn't bear all the unknown sounds attacking him at once; it was chaotic and it was intimidating. now, sai goes to the village and gets everything on his own.

this, the nostalgia, makes him feel old. (but they're not even past their age of twenty-one, they're still young and they have got so much to live for.)

then again, their coexistence isn't entirely made of heaven, but it isn't bad, either. at least there is understanding.

•

sasuke knows this: sai is not good with words. when they are his, but truly his, they trip from his lips in messy amalgam as he thinks them through. there is a dark fallacy to words, like a break in their logic, because they are supposed to be concrete, and mean exactly what they are supposed to. but they always mean a little too much.

so it's okay when they learn to communicate by means different from words; and it's also okay when words are smothered by a kiss.

•

the first time is teary, quick, violent, and sasuke wonders if it was a mistake. it's also the first time he hears sai actually showing any emotion (and sees him, because that happened back in the time he could still, although barely, make out his facial features, and it was glorious, beautiful) and it's also the first and last time he actually wants to give up.

it was because sasuke never wanted to wake up again, and sai grabbed his wrists and talked his throat raw that time, almost hysterically, his breaths coming in short gasps in between words and phrases tripping in between them. there was a punch across sasuke's cheek, too, when he laughed for no reason at all (it had started with childish giggles, snorts until sasuke shook all over); it hurt, and the uchiha could taste metal in his mouth.

he cried blood, tears, and sai cried too, telling him, you have to live, you have to live, in coarse, not-angry, not-solemn, not-anything whispers now. sasuke could see nothing and everything, blurs of black and white and every gray in between—and red, too, violent red.

sasuke kissed him, then—hard and raw and brutal—it wasn't his fault.

what came after that kiss and every time after wasn't his fault, either. it's just a system, sasuke thinks, he releases anger and frustration towards his problems, and it is shared. sai takes his pain and shares the burden with him. and it works.

(and sai will keep on painting unfathomable figures, those sasuke can't possibly dream about identifying one day.)

•

it makes him feel guilty, sometimes, as if he is taking something important from sai.

the uchiha doesn't really analyze the small things, such as the way, silently, he searches sai and takes his wrist in hand, and also silently, sai takes the initiative for him, so sasuke won't be rejected—he never was, not by sai. (and sasuke won't feel as if he is taking advantage, that one way.) he doesn't really analyze the way he feels the synergy between the two of them whenever they are too close to each other.

sasuke doesn't want to think about the way sai willingly lets him help with the discarding of clothing and shifts his legs over his shoulders, despite the discomfort, the burning and stretching sasuke knows will come he lines himself up and presses forward. (a bit clumsily, his hands serving as guides to him and it's never perfect, that one burning moment of entrance; but sai still accepts it.) he willingly doesn't think about how he usually stays still, waiting, until sai either tugs on his hair (ever softly) or presses a hand against sasuke's forehead and asks him to move.

he doesn't admit, as well, the way sai wraps his arms around sasuke's shoulders as so not to grip him, hurt him, with his fingernails. or the way the noises the pale man slips out into his ear always guide him through the whole process in slow trial and error, as they change from pained groans into desperate moans. or how sai's hand guides his as he fumbles for sai's erection, stroking entwined with his.

(meanwhile, sasuke's heart clenching and shuddering, because he doesn't deserve this, he doesn't.)

and, sasuke doesn't possibly consider how he collapses on top of sai, too sated and tired from his own orgasm to roll to the side or pull away, and the other just wraps his arms around the uchiha's trembling frame, fingers threading themselves in his black hair. then, sasuke falls asleep in sai's arms.

however, he thinks about the surrealism of all of this, how selfishness brought sai to him, and how this delicate equilibrium might be so easily lost because of that same selfishness. (with nothing left, then, but ten, perfect purple bruises on sai's thighs.)

•

soft undertones of caramel stream through the blinds in the morning, and sasuke knows something has changed immediately.

sasuke, to put it simply, is terrified as his eyelids flutter countless times until sasuke gets used to this light he's acquainted with by now, groaning and shifting in the mess of the futon (that was clearly made for one) while trying to not awake sai's sleeping body by his side. but still, there is something different, he figures, as he stares at the ceiling.

the uchiha is, obviously, terrified, because when he turns to the side he sees sai sleeping by his side (and needless to say, he smiles a simple smile, ambiguous) with ethereal clarity, one he only dreams of these days, one that lets them count the lashes framing sai's closed eyelids. he takes a moment to brush his hand across sai's forehead and then his thumb across his thick lips just before sai mumbles something and shifts closer to him.

still slightly terrified and amazed, sasuke goes back to sleep, hoping next time he will wake up it won't be to find that this is just a dream.

* * *

_sai & sasuke are _ⓒ_ masashi kishimoto._


End file.
